Fill in the table below with your ideas for representations and ways of using them that would help your students' understanding of mathematics. The idea is to put some of your ideas in one place so that they might be helpful to you in your classrooms. You may label your ideas with your name if you wish, but it is not necessary. Feel free to add to the ideas of your colleagues with more details. (To add another row, click on the table. When the table icon appears, click on Row and then Add a row.)
Representation
Grade Level
How they are used
Advantages
Disadvantages
Lima Bean Math
Pre-K-2
Spray paint lima beans two colors-one on each side. I used blue and orange. Then ask students to pick a predetermined amount like 6 beans and
pre-program a piece of paper with orange and blue boxes separated by + and =. So it looks like orange blank box + blue blank box = black blank box. Then have the children shake and scatter the 6 dice and record the results such as 4 orange + 2 blue = 6 beans all together. Point out that every combination still equals 6. See if they can discover that 4 orange + 2 blue is the reverse of 2 orange + 4 blue and they bring the same results! If the child gets the same equation more than once add another component to the math learning by teaching them to keep track with tally marks. Even children that are not ready to record their results symbolically can have fun manipulating and counting the beans.
- cheap
- fun
swallowing hazard for very young children
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Session 2
Fill in the table below with your ideas for representations and ways of using them that would help your students' understanding of mathematics. The idea is to put some of your ideas in one place so that they might be helpful to you in your classrooms. You may label your ideas with your name if you wish, but it is not necessary. Feel free to add to the ideas of your colleagues with more details. (To add another row, click on the table. When the table icon appears, click on Row and then Add a row.)Level
pre-program a piece of paper with orange and blue boxes separated by + and =. So it looks like orange blank box + blue blank box = black blank box. Then have the children shake and scatter the 6 dice and record the results such as 4 orange + 2 blue = 6 beans all together. Point out that every combination still equals 6. See if they can discover that 4 orange + 2 blue is the reverse of 2 orange + 4 blue and they bring the same results! If the child gets the same equation more than once add another component to the math learning by teaching them to keep track with tally marks. Even children that are not ready to record their results symbolically can have fun manipulating and counting the beans.
- fun